Also speaking

Essentially, this amendment seeks to require that if someone transfers a gun through a sale or purchase--a sale specifically--to another individual, the individual selling the gun or transferring the gun would be required to verify the validity of the transferee's licence with the Canada Firearms Centre. So really, this is essentially reinstating, as I understand it, a very similar clause that appeared in Ms. Hoeppner's Bill C-391, where it says:

in the case of a transfer to an individual, the transferor verifies the validity of the transferee’s Firearms Licence with the Canada Firearms Centre, and obtains a reference number for the inquiry.

We've heard all along that there are two separate unrelated issues here. There's the issue of the registry and the issue of the firearms acquisition certificate. But we've also seen that there's a big disconnect, because there's no real requirement to check that the person has a valid firearms acquisition certificate. So this attempts to reconnect the two, Chair.

All right. I want to first of all explain to those who may be watching today and also those here at committee that we have our regular analysts and our clerk here. We also have our legislative clerk here. The legislative clerk's role here is to go through each amendment and to decide whether these are admissible. Very seldom does the chair stand on his own opinion. We consult with the legislative clerk.

Bill C-19 in clause 11 amends the Firearms Act to alter the conditions under which a person may transfer a firearm that is neither a prohibited firearm nor a restricted firearm. The amendment attempts to insert conditions upon the transferor that would require the transferor to verify certain information with the Canada Firearms Centre, confirm certain other information, and document the interaction by obtaining a reference number for the inquiry. As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states, on page 766,

An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.

In the opinion of the chair, the introduction of these conditions on the transferor is a new concept that is beyond the scope of Bill C-19. Therefore, this amendment is deemed inadmissible.

That being said, I want to also explain.... I see we have some seasoned parliamentarians here, not a lot of new parliamentarians. I guess that wouldn't really matter, but you know that when the chair has ruled that something is inadmissible it is not debatable. We have a number of amendments today that have been ruled inadmissible and we have a number that have been ruled admissible. We basically rule LIB-1 inadmissible.

We will now proceed to LIB-2. What I will want to do on each one of these, regardless of whether they're admissible or inadmissible, is ask the mover to explain the rationale, the reason for the amendment, and then we'll proceed.

The second amendment attempts to reinstate a requirement that existed as a result of the 1977 gun control bill. Specifically, this amendment would require that gunshop owners or wholesalers keep a record of the firearms that they have sold. So for investigative purposes there would be a record on hand somewhere, obviously not in the Canada Firearms Centre per se, but at the level of the retailer there would be a record so that if there were an investigation into a crime or some other such thing involving a firearm, we could find out, we could trace to some extent the firearm and who purchased it and so on and so forth.

So this is really attempting to fill a void that was left by this legislation and attempting to create some kind of record of who's buying firearms in this country at the retailer level.

Bill C-19 in clause 11 amends the Firearms Act to alter the conditions under which a person may transfer a firearm that is neither prohibited nor restricted. The amendment attempts to require any business that carries on activities—which include the manufacturing, buying and selling at wholesale or retail, importing, repairing, altering, or pawnbrokering of a firearm—to keep specific records of all transactions as well as detailed inventories to be provided upon request.

Again, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states on page 766 that an “amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill”.

In the opinion of the chair, the introduction of these conditions on such businesses is a new concept that is beyond the scope of Bill C-19 and is therefore inadmissible.

I have a good idea about what's coming, but we will still repeat that clause 11 of the bill, as drafted, contains a major gap, which means that we could easily lose control. In fact, I'm going to praise my colleague, Ms. Hoeppner, because I think her bill was better than this one. It did fully cover this gap.

The study of Bill C-19 is going to leave me with a great deal of concern, a concern that was expressed to this committee by many witnesses, including victims of the École polytechnique and Dawson College, the people involved with centres for abused women, and so on. There's a danger that, at some point, over the course of the transactions, we may no longer know who owns the firearm in question.

I repeat that the wording of Bill C-391 was much better in this regard. The NDP and I find it unfortunate that what was in Bill C-391 was not put into Bill C-19 to fill that gap.

Actually, the amendment proposes that Bill C-19 be amended by adding after line 45 on page 9, the new following clause:

Section 117 of the Act is amended by adding the following after paragraph (m):

(m.1) regulating the keeping and destruction of records by businesses in relation to firearms that are neither prohibited firearms nor restricted firearms.

We still have the same concern about long guns, which aren't necessarily harmless—as if any firearm could be harmless—and some of them have fairly impressive range. We need to prevent the destruction of the registry and especially the information it contains, through other impacts of the legislation, from creating the gap in clause 11 that I spoke of earlier. As stressed by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and victim support groups, we need to avoid this situation. Out of caution and to provide a little more protection, it would be well-advised to put that clause back in. If we really want to ensure public safety, I think it's the least we could do.

This again is viewed and ruled as being inadmissible. This is what they call the parent act violation. Section 117 of the Firearms Act is not being amended by Bill C-19, so the table views that as being inadmissible.